With increasingly high demand for mobile services, wireless communications networks are being deployed that utilize both macro cells and small cells. For example, small cells (e.g., pico cells, metro cells, micro cells, femtocells, and so forth) are becoming prevalent in macro networks (e.g., Third Generation (3G), Fourth Generation (4G), and so forth) to offload traffic and increase coverage and capacity. Macro cells can cover a large geographic area and can provide unrestricted (or restricted) access to user equipment (UE) that has service subscriptions with the network provider. Pico cells can cover a smaller geographic area and can allow unrestricted access by UEs that have service subscriptions with the network provider. A femtocell can cover a small geographic area, such as a home, and can provide restricted access by UEs that have an association with the femtocell (such as for UEs associated with people that reside in the house or visit the house) and/or might provide unrestricted access.
When a layer of planned high power macro cells, overlaid with layers of lower-power small cells, is planned properly, it can improve the overall capacity and cell-edge performance. Such a network is referred to as a heterogeneous network or HetNet, which is a Long-Term Evolution (LTE) phase 2 deployment and can be utilized to offload coverage holes and hotspots of the LTE macro network.